


All That I Ask

by astral_babe



Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Oops, Sad, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-03 15:52:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13999503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astral_babe/pseuds/astral_babe
Summary: What really happened when Alina lost the light.





	All That I Ask

Alina felt the absence of the light, the vacant space in her chest rotting away inside of her. None of them had expected this, the price of losing her power. It had been glorious the way it left her to bless the otkazat'sya, her final act as a saint, but no one expected the sickness that came later, the decay that ripped through her once healthy body. 

It had laid dormant for a few months and Alina chalked her quickening exhaustion and fatigue to the loss, after all she had been used to the constant hum of energy within her. But as her skin began to dry and crack at the smallest breeze, her white hair turning brittle and dull far too quickly for comfort, Mal had suspected something much darker. He summoned their friends to Karamzin, desperate for a tonic or tincture to ease the symptoms until Alina’s body grew used to the absence. 

“Grisha draw strength from their power,” Genya hummed, “It’s normal that lack of use would deteriorate the body,” 

Alina sat on a chair, all too thin and breath too laboured for comfort. She knew, deep inside, that something was very wrong inside of her and she knew exactly what it was. Alina refused to even think it, but soon enough her friends would come to the same conclusion and that would be that. She watched them silently, sadly, avoiding Nikolai’s steady gaze from across the room. 

“But Alina has no power to summon, anymore,” David spoke softly, an apologetic look in his eyes as he glanced at his friend. No one wanted to remind Alina of what she had lost but it was all too obvious. 

“She’s an otkazat'sya-“ 

“No, she isn’t,” Zoya snapped, cutting Mal off, “She never was,”

“It’s not something you can swap between, Mal,” Genya’s voice dropped, “Grisha is who you are, we don’t get sick, we get stronger. A Grisha has never lost their power before, that we know of, and the thought of it alone is… terrifying,” 

“So if simply not using the power severely weakens a Grisha,” Nikolai said stiffly, his expression unreadable as he turned his black gaze on Genya, “What would it be like to have it torn from you?”

His words sent shivers down everyones spine. Torn from you, the phrasing was brutal, but accurate in Alina’s mind. She could feel the fraying edges in her chest, tickling her insides and polluting her blood. She could hear Genya prattle on about tests and healers, Nikolai insisting on moving Alina to the Grand Palace but she tuned them out, it was hard to focus when she couldn’t feel her heart beat in her chest, when the only sound in her ribs was a death rattle. It was ironic, really, how less than a year ago she had been faced with an endless expanse of time in front of her, and now Alina’s own mortality was something she was so aware of that she had to choke down a laugh at the thought. 

“I’m going to die,” Alina whispered, and silence was deafening around her as stunned eyes glistened with fear, “I can feel it,” 

Mal stormed out of the room, doors slamming behind him. Zoya’s jaw tightened as her whole body stiffened. Genya’s green eye overflowed with tears as she laced her finger’s with David’s, continuing her planning with a stoney-eyed Nikolai. 

—

Alina was stuck in a period where everything had gone downhill but she couldn’t find the strength to care. She was falling to pieces bit by burning bit and it was only a matter of time before she was gone completely, her bones turned to ash and whatever memory held of her fading more and more with each passing day. 

“What does it feel like?” a healer asked her, documenting each and every little thing. 

“Like i’m dying,” Alina smiled, the absence hadn’t taken her sense of humour.

“Now now, sunshine,” Nikolai’s smile was crooked, amused, “as much as i love your wit, this might be the time for an actual answer,” 

Alina knew it hurt him to use the nickname. She was less sunshine and more graveyard these days. 

“I can feel the absence expanding,” Alina hated the way people looked at her now, “winding it’s way through my system. Yesterday it was down my forearm and today it’s reached the very tips of my fingers, curled around my bones like vines,”

That’s how it was when you were dying, when you could feel every little thing the sickness was taking from you. Except Alina could see what it was taking from everyone else, too. 

“I can feel my insides shutting down,” she finished, keeping her eyes locked with Nikolai’s. 

Alina used to wonder why this was happening, her power had left her, not the other way around. Saints knew she’d use it if she could but that’s not how this worked. She had to pay a price for using the third amplifier and that’s exactly what she was doing. Alina tried to block out the sadness around her, letting the healers and Genya do whatever they needed to her, she let David hook her up to strange machines that monitored her heart-rate and vital signs, rigging it to set off alarms at the slightest sign of danger so she could be watched 24/7. 

She tried to block out the girls she saw Mal lead up to his room every night, he was dealing and that’s all she could ask for, though she didn’t hide her disgust. Nikolai stayed close by her side, never showing his pain or grief, even has he held her hair back as she vomited anything her stomach managed to let go of. Sometimes it was food she’d somehow been able to keep down for little while, other times it was blood, though neither seemed to faze him.

Nikolai looked at her like she was still Alina, sick and pale and tired looking, but still the Alina he had come to love. For once she was going to allow herself to lean on that because she had to feel her life slowly slip away and, saints she was going to be gone soon and she didn’t want to die alone. Mal had come to find solace in the arms of other women and Alina didn’t blame him, better he start to move on while she was still here to try and hate him, because no one felt sad when someone who despised you died. He had been there when the healers had given their best approximation for the time she had left, and he celebrated by drowning himself in whatever poison was strong enough to numb the pain, usually kvas, because if Alina couldn’t drink herself into oblivion then he was more than happy to do it for her. She had moved into a separate bedroom as the floor piled high with empty bottles and underthings from strange women, Genya creating a place for herself on the daybed she dragged away from the window. The sunlight only served to tease them, it seemed. 

Nikolai was the only one who let her speak about her death freely. He was already grieving her, getting his chance to say goodbye while she was here to allow him to let her go. 

“I’m so tired of trying to hold it together,” Alina whispered, hands shaking as she stared at the grey veins that snaked under her skin, “I know I’m never going to get better, I just need them to see that,” 

“They will, sweetheart,” Nikolai traced the skeins of darkness under her skin, “They just need time,” 

“I can’t wait around for them to be ready. I can’t even remember the last time I felt anything other than pain, Nikolai, I just want to be done,”

Alina heard the man beside her suck in a shaky breath. 

“It was a great world we lived in. I loved you so much I thought I would break for it,” Nikolai’s voice was smooth, even and eloquent as ever, “you were a light that never dimmed,” 

Alina didn’t miss how he spoke about her in past tense, it put her at ease, even as Nikolai kept his head down, ankles crossed and back straight as he leaned against the pillows at his back. 

“Some people have a beauty in the simplest of movements. I could spend hours finding oceans in the whorls of your fingertips. Every part of you was a mystery, a delight, a gift, Alina,” Nikolai gently placed a finger under her chin, lifting her gaze to meet his. His hazel eyes were sad, glistening with tears as he leaned in to place a kiss on her forehead so gentle she wasn’t sure if she even felt it. “Say your goodbyes, sunshine, and be done. You deserve anything your broken little heart desires, even if it is an ending,” 

Alina brushed her fingers across Nikolai’s cheek, smiling softly as he closed his eyes and leaned into her. 

“Thank you” she whispered. She wouldn’t say that she loved him, she wouldn’t say it to anyone these days, the words only brought more unnecessary pain. 

Alina slipped down from her bed, leaving Nikolai to collect himself in private. He would be okay, she had faith in him to guide the others into acceptance, to understand her thoughts. Alina swayed on her feet, desperately trying to ignore the nausea that swirled through her body. She made her way down the hall, every ounce of her being telling her to turn back, that she didn’t want to do this because she was going to die tonight and Mal was going to be okay, he was going to live and she couldn’t help but resent him a little for that. 

The door was ajar and Mal sat at the foot of his bed, his head buried in his hands. Alina cleared her throat and he shot up to meet her gaze, his eyes bloodshot and broken as he stared back at her. He dared not say anything as he slipped back on the bed, resting against the headboard as he held his arms out to her. 

Alina sucked in a deep breath, steeling what was left of her heart as she crawled onto the bed beside him, breath coming in short pants as she laid her head against his chest. Alina ignored the scattered bottles of whiskey and kvas that littered the floor, the shattered glasses and the way his shoulders shook ever so slightly. Her skin prickled with goosebumps, she felt wrong in so many ways because she was the one dying and yet Alina could see pieces falling off of Mal and settling in her lap, like he was telling her to take them with her to the grave. 

“I don’t know what to say,” she whispered, squeezing his hand as tightly as she could. 

“Then don’t say anything,” Mal replied, voice rough and thick with tears, “Let’s just sit here and pretend like we’re not scared of what happens next,” 

Alina nodded, he seemed to know what she was going to do, but the silence lasted a whole of six seconds before he was talking once again. 

“Hold me,” he whispered and Alina froze. 

“Mal-“ 

“Please, if this is my last night with you then all I ask is that this is the way I remember us,” his voice hitched in his throat and Alina couldn’t bring herself to look up at him, she tried too hard to steel herself against her feelings for him to breakdown now, “I’m not asking for forgiveness, but it matters how tonight ends. It matters how we end,” 

Alina nodded, thankful for the way Mal moved swiftly, turning his head away from her as he laid down on his pillows. Alina wrapped her arms around his waist and she couldn’t help but find it amusing that she was the big spoon. 

She buried her face in the hair at the nape of his neck, inhaling his familiar scent and suddenly Alina felt tears slide down her cheeks. She didn’t nothing to stop them, settling for tightening her hold on Mal, trying her hardest to keep him from falling apart as he curled up in her arms. 


End file.
